Nitrogen Gas - Makes Tyres Softer, Cutting Back Top Speed

Commuting from Glenmarie Cove, Klang to SPCA in Ulu Klang is such a long drive that it's almost like travelling from KL to Melaka and back. Fortunately, being able to drive fast makes the journey a little more bearable, but it also reveals a major drawback I didn't realise about my Ford Focus S2.0 till now - my soft tyres are holding it back.

I use nitrogen gas in my tyres to keep the car from jarring too much on the roads. This means that my shocks, springs and tyres would last longer.

Unfortunately, the major trade-offs are acceleration and top speed.

The Ford Focus S2.0 can do 180Km/h easily, but with nitrogen gas, the car struggles just to go beyond 170km/h. This makes overtaking kiasu rog hoggers (who hog the right lane and speed up just to cut you off when overtaking) a lot harder and more frustrating.

This reminds me of the Top Gear episode when that cock Jeremy Clarkson, the Hamster and Captain Slow took their cars to the American salt flats to go as fast as they could flat out. The Hamster deflated his tyres to see if he could get more traction and the result was that his muscle car ran slower.

Likewise, by making my tyres softer with nitrogen, I'm making my Focus S2.0 go significantly slower.

Solution? I'm going back to Eneos to increase my Focus' tyre pressure from 35 psi to 37 psi. Hopefully this will help restore the car's speediness.

Of course, if I used normal air, I only need to inflate up to 34 psi - a tyre with nitrogen gas requires a higher psi to make it as hard. But then, I'd have to fill up every week with normal air, as opposed to every five to six months with nitrogen.

Anyway, I'll be going to Eneos today and will blog about the results after.